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March 29, 2024 5:02 am
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EDITORIAL: More Than One Way To Pee In A Town’s Drinking Water

Last week a news story out of the northwestern United States had everyone in the country suspiciously sniffing at their drinking water. According to the reports, security cameras caught a 21 year old man generously contributing to the Portland, Oregon culinary water supply by relieving himself into a pristine city reservoir. After being quickly apprehended, the man, who had been drinking with his friends in the surrounding city park, admitted to being rather embarrassed by the whole thing. He claimed that it was all a misunderstanding. You see, he had assumed that this public park’s water feature was just an open air sewage treatment pond. He had never dreamed that he was befouling the city’s drinking water!

In reaction to all of this, the city of Portland flushed 8 million gallons of its drinking water down the drain at an estimated total cost of $36,000. Of course, they were criticized by experts for doing so. What a horrible waste of valuable drinking water, they said. This whole affair was just a drop of water in the ocean, as it were. A few ounces of urine diluted into millions of gallons of clean water have a negligible affect. In effect it amounts to a miniscule amount of added salts in the water, and natural salts at that.

Still the city was in a tough spot. After all, they had actual video of a guy peeing in the town’s water hole. And it had quickly been broadcast all over the world. People were watching it on the morning news in the very act of adding tap water to their frozen orange juice. Really, what choice did the city have?

But more disturbing than the idea of a guy peeing in the town’s breakfast beverage was the realization of the full import of these open air drinking water reservoirs. Located in the middle of a city park, these ponds were storing water that reportedly would receive no further treatment before being piped straight to the taps of Portland residents. As such the water has been, by necessity, enriched with much more revolting elements than a guy’s urine. City officials, who are responsible for cleaning the ponds every six months, admitted to finding things like animal carcasses, paint cans, construction materials, firework debris and even plastic bags used to scoop up after dogs; all of this was found regularly in these reservoirs. Wow!

Fortunately, the folks up in Portland are known for their love of nature. After all, this is water from the mountains, flowing down in pristine rivulets and streams to their fair city. Yes, it receives some treatment before it gets to the city reservoirs. But what is more natural than water being stored out in the open; and in a public park no less, for all to enjoy? That is nature at its finest! And whatever is natural must be healthy, right? At least that is how they feel about it up north. Must be nice to have Mother Nature smile on them so.

Unfortunately, we are not so lucky here in the Moapa Valley. We don’t have such pristine natural water resources flowing from the tops of snow-covered mountains directly into our homes. It is a lot more work than that. Instead our water comes from an ancient underground aquifer tapped by a deep well and immediately piped and pumped through a fully covered and secure system. Fortunately, that means the water delivered to the taps of Moapa Valley residents has very little danger of containing any alcohol-saturated urine. Thanks heavens for that!

But while all this may seem pretty safe and natural on the surface, we have been told that Moapa Valley water is nowhere near as pure and clean as the Portland City Park pond water. Because our water passes through deep underground geological formations, it may contain traces of chemical substances which are much more to be feared than anything that a late night frat party could dump into it.

For example, our water has consistently shown arsenic levels of about 15 parts per billion (ppb). This number is relatively constant. By all accounts, and for as long as anyone has measured it, the arsenic levels have remained about the same.

Of course, 15 ppb is not much. At one time, the federally established limit for arsenic in groundwater was set at 50 ppb. That was just fine for us here because our spring water was well below that number. We were proud to say that people had been drinking Moapa Valley water for years; centuries really; and we had no recoreded outbreaks of arsenic related illnesses. That was, no doubt, because our water was so far under the federal limit.

Then a few years ago everything changed. Federal legislation was passed, pursuant to a Clinton-era Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulation, that reduced the acceptable arsenic limit in drinking water to only 10 ppb. This had huge consequences for rural water suppliers throughout the southwest. Any community water purveyor that didn’t meet that standard was required to develop treatment facilities to bring their water into compliance.

Well this was equivalent to the federal government thoughtlessly unzipping and taking a leak in the Moapa Valley’s drinking water! Suddenly it was all out the next morning and recorded on video in full detail! Oh, the horror! Did you know that there is arsenic in our drinking water?! Isn’t that poison? What are we to do? No wonder I’m not feeling that well this morning!

Of course, there had been no change in the quality of the water that night. But because of this randomly established standard; which, by the way, came about as a result of absolutely no scientific research; we in the Moapa Valley were told that we had 5 ppb too many of arsenic in our water. Our previously clean and healthy artesian spring water; the lifeblood of our pioneer community; the water that we had been drinking for generations; had overnighte been declared unfit for human consumption. Somebody had peed in our water hole!

To fix this urgent problem, the local water district had to do a lot more than to flush. And it is costing a lot more, too. New arsenic treatment facilities have been built at a total cost of around $5 million. But that is not all. Ongoing maintenance costs on the facilities are estimated to run upwards of a quarter million dollars a year. Of course, that is a huge cost for a small community water purveyor.

And who do you suppose is footing the tab for the federal government to throw this kegger-party in our water pond? Well we are, of course. The fine residents and business owners of Moapa Valley have been paying the bill. By some estimates, nearly half of the base charge that every single water customer pays each month goes to fund the arsenic treatment plants. And all of this fuss is over the miniscule difference of 5 ppb of arsenic in our otherwise pure artesian spring water.

On second thought, that Portland pond water isn’t sounding so bad after all, is it?

Listen, next time the frat boys down at the EPA feel like they need to answer nature’s call, maybe they ought to go on up to Portland, Oregon to relieve themselves. Folks up there are apparently used to things being more natural that way.

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